The Wedding
by pinkpersika
Summary: At 24 years old, Sakura struggles with the reality that her best friend is no longer going to be dealing with childish life choices. On the journey to planning a wedding in only a month, Sakura sets off with a load of work and a determined will to jump head-first into the world she avoided for so long. But not everything goes as planned.
1. Chapter 1

_Pink_

* * *

 **Pink roses symbolized happiness.** There was simplicity with a single rose, just one; gratitude and with a touch of elegance.

But Ino didn't want that.

She wanted the gross amount of roses to be so great that everyone who left the reception room would smell of the perfume. She wanted petals to cling at the clothing of her guests like glitter, and the very aroma of her wedding to follow them home and stain their furniture. Ino Yamanka's wedding would linger with them after the flowers had withered and their lives had all settled. When the party ended, they would remember the extravagance of a thousand blossoms that _was_ Ino Yamanaka.

"We're not going to let you do everything," Sakura warned. "You're a control freak and it'll only make you break out."

They sat side by side at the hokage's desk, twiddling their pencils while trying to make life-and-death decisions for Ino's Big Day. Neither were sure if they would face any real consequence for using the office, but no one else had been occupying it when they cracked the door ten minutes prior, and no one had since tried. Papers covered the surface of the cleared desk and took the combined form of several charts and graphs, like a battle map, something intricate and diabolical.

"Considering how many guests..." Ino mumbled. She crossed off something she had written and then reached over Sakura into the basket of colored markers they were using to code everything with.

"Hot Magenta?" Sakura gasped.

Ino snorted, "As if I'd underline my table cloth pattern with Iguana Green."

"Have you decided on which invitations to go with?" Sakura asked. She had been asking this question all week, but Ino wouldn't reply with a straight answer.

"I like the gold trim on the ecru paper-" She stopped, dropped her pen, "-Sakura, I feel like my wedding should be special."

Sakura cleared her throat, "I'm sure it will be, Ino-chan, but we need to send these invitations out at some point."

"We haven't even found a venue," Ino said, "how can I invite people without telling them where go?"

"We don't send them, but we at least _have_ them," Sakura said.

The light above them twitched and both hesitantly looked at the ceiling, wondering if there would be yet another power outage. No one knew exactly what was causing it, but the power had been doing a lot more flickering than it used to. The recent upgrade was great for new arrivals, but there were still the older buildings from before that no one had wanted to demolish. Even though they were technically newer, thanks to Pain destroying everything nearly a decade ago, they were there with problems.

"It's been a long time since there was a big wedding with everyone invited," Ino said, drawing Sakura's attention back to the work station.

"Ino-chan, I'm a bit worried about the electrical situation,"Sakura said.

Ino wrote it off, "It's just the rain."

"Where else, other than Konoha?" Sakura asked.

"Well, I'd suggest we go back to the groom's home town but he was raised in a basement," Ino said.

"I don't remember Sai ever saying where he was from," Sakura agreed, although Ino's comment was one line away from an insult.

"I assume he probably doesn't know,"Ino said.

"Have you ever asked him?"

Ino shrugged, "have _you?_ "

"Well, when we first met I spent a lot of time beating him up," Sakura confessed. "I supposed I skipped many of the formalities."

"Most orphans don't know where they came from, anyway," Ino said. "It's clearly not important to him."

"Help me out here," Sakura whined, "I can't let you have your wedding in a city that has black outs every month, it would ruin everything."

Sakura knew it was a mistake as soon as the words left her mouth, and sure enough, Ino began crying. There were a few reasons for why Ino was unable to fess up to the fact that her wedding wasn't going to be able to go on in her home town. Reason one was that the city was in the throws of repair and they kept finding new problems, and two, Ino was three months pregnant. Of course, Sakura was the only one who knew-naturally, giving her anxiety.

"All we've got to do is call around," Sakura said. "There are people who rent out venues for things like this, weddings."

The night Ino had demanded that Sakura confirm what she already knew, was back in late November, and they spent the rest of that month unable to talk about it further. It was probably the one thing in the world that the blonde refused to bring up in conversation and when the only other topic became weddings and formal marriage certificates, they both knew what direction needed to be taken. It was an odd situation, Sakura had to admit, but this was her best friend. Neither had talked about children in a serious manner for all of their years, and being twenty-four had not changed that. They were both so young, Sakura would think, and the idea of what it would be like if it were _her,_ scared her to new heights. But-they were no so young, because fellow Kunoichi were doing exactly this. Would she have been able to pull together a wedding is such a short amount of time? Her friend was no one to mess with when it came to these things, even if she frequently broke down to tears when there was a bump.

Sakura continued to fill the atmosphere with her voice, "And aside from that, we need to make sure that the climate is right." She didn't like seeing Ino with her head down on the table the way it was, trying to control her breathing. It was unnatural, completely out of character. "Spring is the perfect time for a wedding but sometimes there can still be snow on the ground."

Ino finally chimed in, her eyes suddenly dry and without trace of any hint of sadness or worry. It was an art that baffled Sakura, and Ino had always been able to do it. "We can go to Land of Waves," Ino suggested.

"That's a great idea!" Sakura said, enthused. She like that place and everyone knew it.

"Calm down, it's just a city," Ino snorted. "Billboard-brow."

* * *

 **Sakura had only been into a bridal shop once in her entire life.** She awkwardly stood at the front desk and played with the pen near the registry form, rolling it back and forth while she waited for an employee to notice she was there. A wedding wasn't a wedding without an expensive white dress, and needing to go into one of the skyscrapers just to reach the mall, was like being in a movie. She kept forgetting that Konoha wasn't the small village she had grown up in. Hell, there was an actual bridal _store._

"Hello!"~

The voice was high-pitched, girlish. The woman who appeared around the corner, dressed in a black pant-suit, was probably in her forties. Sakura cleared her throat and wondered if the woman thought she looked like a simple farm girl, lost in the city. "I'm here to schedule an appointment for my friend."

"For a fitting?"~

Sakura smiled, _why else would I be here?_

"We have an opening next month," The woman said, returning Sakura's fake smile. "On the 4th?"

Sakura nodded, "That'll work."

"Great!"~

Sakura watched as the woman, _Lily_ , flipped through her date book. She looked like one of those people who actually like doing her job.

"The, uh, the name is Yamanaka,"Sakura said. The woman looked up. " _W_ _hy-Aye-Em-Aye-En-Aye-Kay-Aye."_

 _What the hell is Sai's last name, anyway?_

Sakura swept her gaze around the room and felt her heart leap; dresses, white, and everywhere. She liked this sort of thing because it was so impractical of a need for a ninja. Weddings? She could be killed in battle. Standing there in that white room, with the white dresses, and the woman in the black suit, she felt like she was cheating.

"Do you have any other questions, Ma'm?" The woman asked.

"No, that's all," Sakura chirped.

 _Can I try on every single ball gown you have in stock?_

"I hope to see you next month!"~

Sakura smiled something of a wide grin, followed by the cutest laugh she could muster. She wanted to be one of them, living in a world where they came to work and didn't see death and suffering. Where their surroundings were white and no one was trying to kill them.

She turned around and faced the tall glass window where mannequins advertised different silhouettes, all the lace and chiffon in the entire world. But there was another thing: these were nothing like what her mother had worn. Where were the Kimono's? Again, she had to remember that this was a different place she lived in, not the secluded town with strong traditions. Things changed. Things evolved.

The mall wasn't very crowded on a Tuesday morning.

She passed a dark window and realized that she could fit in there if she tried, if she wanted. She didn't look like a girl who had grown up without a television, or a woman who still used a land-line.


	2. Chapter 2

He saw her walking down the escalator. She looked like she was running away from something, in a hurry to get out. Whenever he saw her, rare occasion that it was, she always looked like this; in a hurry, in a rush, holding onto her purse as if she might lose it. He watched her approach him, and then zip by without noticing him watching her. Did that happened a lot? Yes, with most people. That's why he liked to sit in the mall, because no one noticed him. The voices of the many created the perfect white noise and the was just another ghost on a bench.

Kakashi's days were somewhat of a mystery, even to himself. He spent a good majority of them exploring parts of the city that he had never seen before simply because he felt like it was his duty to know these things. He had surely lived in Konoha long enough.

He turned his page and stretched his arm out to the bench, grasping the part where no one sat, popping his shoulder. He lightly chuckled at the pink-hair kunoichi that didn't look comfortable in the shopping district, and then looked at the words on each page as though he hadn't read them hundreds of times before. Maybe it wouldn't have surprised anyone to learn that he rarely read the books, as much as he just looked at the words and thought about various things that needed to be thought about.

Why do some people walk down a moving staircase? _it could have been that they didn't like appearing lazy_. Or are they actually in a hurry to be somewhere?

It didn't surprise _him_ at all that he couldn't seem to go anywhere without his crutch, a binding of words that were too risky for him to ever say to another human being, let alone allow someone else to know he enjoyed. Romance novels, the kind that were risky to bring out in public. The kind of story line that was not the story line someone like himself aught to have enjoyed.

"Sakura-chan!"

He swiftly returned the book to his side pouch and fell into stride beside her. She was wearing an outfit that reminded him of the late Tsunade-sama, the wrap dress and fitted capri-pants. Her heels clicked on the large tiles and he fought to keep up with her. He hair was no different, still it's long bob with a slight messy-ness that was a hallmark of all her hairstyles.

"Off to somewhere important?" He asked. He had to slouch to see her properly.

She looked at him for a moment, then focused ahead. "Not really," she said.

He hummed to himself, _I don't think she's had her morning coffee_.

"Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?" She asked, steering them towards a cafe. He went along with her and waited for her to say something more. "I like that these places are everywhere; it's convenient."

Sakura always ordered her coffee black and then added too much sugar once she was able to mess with it. She had been doing this for years and the new convenience of the franchise cafe's meant that she could do it more frequently, and learn nothing in the process.

"What brings you to the mall?" She asked.

Kakashi shrugged.

"I suppose you like the ambiance, don't you?" She said, leaning into the counter enough to see the employee prepare her beverage.

He picked up a gift card and examined the holiday-esque design, "something like that."

Sakura took her drink as it was put onto the counter top and rushed to the sugar station, reached for the packets. Her hand hovered between the real sugar and the fake sweetener. She took two fake sugars and one real, tore them, and shook the white crystals into the cup. Kakashi handed her a red stirring stick and dropped it into the steaming liquid before she could catch it.

"What's the weather like over in Land of Waves?" She asked, inhaling some of the heat as it circled her face.

He contemplated, "I don't know."

"You're always so helpful," She said.

Sakura should have known that any city that was by a large body of water had a tendency towards wind, but he didn't want to come outright and say what was obvious. But aside from the wind, he remembered the city being a relatively sunny place. Chirping birds, and all. It had that feel.

"I'm sure it'll be fine in spring."Her voice was quiet and reflective, like she was speaking without realizing.

"It is," He confirmed, but she didn't hear him.

She took a cozy and put it on the cup, "I have to-I have to go!"

 _She reached an epiphany, apparently._

* * *

Sakura had found a wedding catalog that she thought Ino would enjoy, but when she arrived at the front door of the flower shop, she realized that all she had with her was an empty coffee cup from earlier that morning. She remembered most of the featured article, one about choosing a wedding dress, but when Ino appeared at the counter after Sakura rung the customer bell, it seemed to escape her.

"Oh, hi," Ino said. She looked unhappy.

"I got you in for next month," Sakura said, uppity.

Ino began to peel back a splinter of wood off the counter top, "I'll probably be too fat to wear a nice dress."

Sakura winced a little as the piece of wood shot out into the air with a snapping noise. After all, she had a valid point. "There are all kinds of dresses, and it's not like you were going to wear a form-fitting one in the first place."

"Maybe I was!" Ino exclaimed.

"We both know you like princess designs," Sakura patronized, _let's not pretend that you don't._

Ino shrugged.

"I was also thinking that you might want to go with a rosy pink, like a pale pink," Sakura said, "Instead of white or off-white, it would suit you."

"That's what my mom said," Ino groaned, "but don't you think there's going to be too much pink?"

Sakura's face was dead-pan, " _Too much_ pink?"

"Forget it," Ino said, "of course you'd tell me to get a pink dress, because it's the kind of dress you'd wear."

Sakura brightened, "do you think it would become me?"

"I'll answer that when you get married," Ino said.

"We'll stick with pink because it looks good on both you and Sai," Sakura said. "Think about the wedding photos."

Ino nodded, "You're right, as long as I look good."

"Exactly," Sakura snapped. "That's why we're getting a good photographer and appropriate lighting, the essentials."

"An hour in the city changed you," Ino said.

"An hour in the city can change anyone," Sakura replied.


End file.
